1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed toward a sheet material clamp and more particularly toward a sheet material clamp with multiple clamping structures positioned lengthwise along a clamping surface.
2. Background Art
It is customary in the building and construction trades to install countertops in various residential and commercial building locations such as kitchens, bathrooms or office workspaces. Relatively simple countertop designs can be fabricated offsite and installed by a finish carpenter as delivered. In the alternative, more highly specialized countertops are often fabricated from sheet materials onsite as part of the installation process. This second onsite method of installation and fabrication is typically used in more highly customized applications such as luxury homes. Custom countertops which are fabricated onsite can be created from laminated wood products, stone or specialized plastic sheet materials.
In many installations it is desired to bond a double thickness of the sheet material being used to the front edge of the countertop. The double thickness material along the front edge of a countertop can provide a more durable and aesthetically appealing edge surface toward the living or high use area. In addition, the use of a relatively thin length of material to form the double thickness edge can provide a significant overall savings of material costs.
Typically, the two portions of sheet material which are being bound together to form a double thickness edge are affixed to each other with an adhesive specially formulated for the material in use. Clamping pressure must be applied along the front edge of the countertop to assure that the sheet materials being bound are held in close proximity while the adhesive sets. A row of C-clamps along the countertop edge can be used to apply the necessary clamping pressure. However, the use of C-clamps in this application can be difficult since numerous separate clamps must be applied along the countertop edge and it can be difficult to get an even application of pressure along the edge with a series of individual clamps. In addition the installation of individual clamps requires the countertop craftsman to position and tighten multiple clamps quickly as appropriate clamping pressure must be applied before the adhesive begins to set. It is quite possible through the inexpert use of C-clamps to ruin a countertop edge by not applying pressure evenly and quickly enough.
In many custom countertops, the countertops have curved edges and the curved edges can vary from inner and outer radii or corners and straight edges. These complicated edge configurations can further enhance the risk of ruining countertop edges by not applying suitable pressure.
The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems discussed above.